Cold smoked venison backstrap..

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Meatcandy101

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 26, 2021
13
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Does anyone have a good cold smoked venison backstrap recipe? I'd like to cold smoke some backstraps and I really don't know where to start. My plan is to route the smoke of my pellet smoker to a vault type smoker yo produce the cold smoke. I'm not sure how long to smoke or cure and looking for some tips!
 
Cold smoke is not recommended UNLESS you first cure the meat with cure#1 and salt. Cold smoking occurs in the optimum range for pathogenic bacteria to grow so you need the protection of the cure #1 to protect the meat.

Remember the 40-140 rule...
Raw meat uncured must not stay between the temps. of 40-140*F for more than 4 hours.

What are you trying to make.
 
Cold smoke is not recommended UNLESS you first cure the meat with cure#1 and salt. Cold smoking occurs in the optimum range for pathogenic bacteria to grow so you need the protection of the cure #1 to protect the meat.

Remember the 40-140 rule...
Raw meat uncured must not stay between the temps. of 40-140*F for more than 4 hours.

What are you trying to make.
I'm planning on cold smoking venison backstrap. I'm definitely going to cure it but not quite sure how long to cure or smoke. From what I've researched so far I'm thinking of doing a dry cure of sea salt and sugar for a few hours then cold smoke for 12 hours or so. Just hoping to get some insight/tips from those who have done it.
 
Use a cure calculator..
https://genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/nitritecuringcalculator.html

125ppm
enter pounds of meat
enter zero liquid for a dry brine

That will give you amount of cure.

Then enter thickness, and tubular for a backstrap

that will give you length of time to cure the meat to the center. You can add a couple days just for insurance...
 
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I was planning on using this recipe because the cold smoked backstraps I'm trying to recreate looked exactly like these. I was surprised to see the short cure time of 90 minutes. Any thoughts on this?
 
You probably already know this but, just in case...
I have "regular smoked" venison backstraps with excellent results.
If I recall I smoked them at 225F. They were bacon wrapped. Very tender and delicious.
 
You probably already know this but, just in case...
I have "regular smoked" venison backstraps with excellent results.
If I recall I smoked them at 225F. They were bacon wrapped. Very tender and delicious.
Yes, this is one of my favorite ways to cook backstrap. Just looking for more snack type preserved options. I had some very similar to the link I attached and it was amazing.
 
The more research I've done I feel like what I had was dried venison (possibly cold smoked until dry). No way was it brought to a certain temp.
 
Check out Bear's dried beef. On my list to try soon.
 
Check out Bear's dried beef. On my list to try soon.
So far I've been following this exact recipe. I have two 1lb pieces of backstrap curing right now (since Sunday night). I'm planning to do one exactly as this recipe reads and with the other I plan to cold smoke at night and put in the fridge during the day repeating that for a few days for more of a dried venison.
 
As for cold smoking try an a-maze-n tray. You can use either pellets or dust. You could also buy a tube. I have both.
 
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As for cold smoking try an a-maze-n tray. You can use either pellets or dust. You could also buy a tube. I have both.
I was thinking of putting flexible (metal) dryer vent over my pellet smokers chimney and running it into a vault smoker. Do you see any potential issues with this?
 
I was thinking of putting flexible (metal) dryer vent over my pellet smokers chimney and running it into a vault smoker. Do you see any potential issues with this?
Will run a lot hotter than the amazen pellet tray or tube.... both will only raise the temp. of the chamber about 5-7*F above ambient temp.
I strongly recommend Dave's pellet dust for cold smoking. Very clean burn, very thin blue smoke.....
 
BWT, when you say cold smoke, how cold are we talkin here? In my mind, as a salumi maker, cold smoke is defined as below 71*F....
Night time temps right now are consistently in the 50's where I'm at so I'm guessing I'll be close to 70's?
 
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